Drink of the Week: The Ford Cocktail, Version 2

Image ALT text goes here.As I tried to rescue the Ford Cocktail for a second week in row from my own mixed feelings, at times I was  tempted  just declare victory and move on,a la Vietnam. I am, instead, prepared to declare the coupe half-full with a sweeter version of the drink I actually like a bit better.

There’s just no point in fighting the the fact that sweetened Old Tom Gin and megasugary hazelnut liqueur Benedictine are just destined to pound the hell out of even the finest dry vermouth. I give in and declare that I actually kind of like this drink, though it will never be a personal favorite. It’s definitely a more accessible improvement over last week’s even sweeter traditional version. In addition, I’ve made what I think are a few minor improvements in a version of the drink promulgated online at Imbibe by Chicago bartender Stephen Cole

The Ford Cocktail, Version 2

2 ounces Old Tom Gin
1 ounce dry vermouth
1/2 tablespoon (1/4 ounce) Benedictine
2-3 dashes orange bitters
1 orange twist (garnish)

Combine everything but the orange twist in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Mr. Cole thinks you should stir this drink but I say you should shake it most vigorously. Then, strain it into a coupe or martini-style cocktail glass. You can add your orange twist in the traditional way — rimming the glass, twisting the orange peel over the drink to express the oils onto the surface of the beverage and then dropping the peel into the drink. Or, as Cole has it, you can discard the orange peel. I didn’t see much difference.

Enjoy your drink and toast second chances. Even when they don’t exactly produce perfection, they’re a reminder that life really does go on.

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I kept fiddling with the proportions of this version of the Ford Cocktail, trying to fight what initially struck me as excessive sweetness, and got exactly no place. 1/4 of an ounce (1/2 tablespoon) of Benedictine became just one teaspoon and then 1/2 half a teaspoon. The drink lost sweetness but gained neither charm nor balance. Yet, when I returned to the original Cole formulation, I gradually grew to accept, if not exactly love, the Ford.

Still, I have to differ with the Cole recipe in a couple of respects. It specifically calls out the high-end Dolin’s for its dry vermouth. I like Dolin’s quite a bit, but I found the drink might actually have been improved by the more standard, much cheaper, and slightly dryer Martini & Rossi. I usually prefer slightly more flavorful dry vermouths but, for this drink, the crispness of Martini may win.

I win as well, because I finally get to move on to another drink, and I think it might be one I not only kinda invented myself but actually like. Stay tuned.

  

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Drink of the Week: The Ford Cocktail, Version 1

The Ford Cocktail.Happy July 4! I wish I could say I have a drink that’s a perfect salute to the ol’ red, white, and blue. Honestly, however, today’s drink has no particular connection with the holiday or even the auto manufacturer it shares a name with, nor even its enterprising, infamously antisemitic founder. It’s also a drink that, at this point, I have to say I’ve found to be just kind of okay. But I still haven’t given up and will even be revisiting the Ford Cocktail in another iteration very soon.

Why on earth would I do that? Because I’m stubborn, that’s why…and I’m determined to give it’s alternative version, with similar ingredients but radically different proportions, a try. Nevertheless, obviously this version has its fans, including cocktail archivist Ted Haigh who featured it in his super-influential tome, “Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails.” Let’s see if you want the remember this one.

The Ford Cocktail

1 ounce Old Tom Gin
1 ounce dry vermouth
3 dashes orange bitters
1/4-1/2 teaspoon Benedictine
1 orange twist (semi-mandatory garnish)

Combine the liquids in a cocktail shaker or mixing glass. You can stir vigorously with cracked ice if you want to be like Mr. Haigh, or you can do as I prefer slightly and shake it within an inch of its life. (Regular ice will probably do.) Strain the result into a chilled cocktail glass and salute Edsel Ford. Not because he or anyone in his family had anything to do with this drink, but just because he had the bad fortune to gone down in history as the name of a failed car that probably wasn’t as bad as legend made out. His brother was probably named “Ishtar.”

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There isn’t a lot of room for variation with this drink as far as brands are concerned. I was using Hayman’s Old Tom Gin, by far the most widely available version of the now relatively rare sweetened gin. (It’s only competitor, as far as I can tell, is Ransom’s Old Tom Gin, which is rumored to be connected to classic cocktail super-historian David Wondrich.) For my vermouth, I used both Dolin’s and Martini, with a slight preference for the former. My orange bitters were Regans and my Benedictine was Dom. These are all outstanding products but, for the life of me, no matter what I did this drink came out…acceptable.

Probably the best version used the Dolin’s and was shaken within an inch of its life. I messed around with a bit more and bit less of the very sweet and tasty Benedictine. I found it a hair too sweet if I used a whole half teaspoon and a hair too dry at a quarter. It was way too sweet when I tried to follow the classic instructions and add three sloppy “dashes” of the liqueur…but that’s probably because I’m still too lazy or cheap to buy an eye dropper or some kind of shaker bottle.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, while I wouldn’t stop anyone from trying to make a Ford Cocktail this July 4th weekend, you might want to stick around for the alternative version in coming weeks. Or, hell, have an Old Fashioned or two.

  

Drink of the Week: The Casino

Image ALT text goes here.As start to I write this, I’ve just finished watching the third presidential debate and I’m contemplating the power of the Etch-a-Sketch. Just as Mitt Romney somehow made a significant slice of the electorate forget everything that happened prior to debate #1, now left-leaners like your humble tippler are hoping debates #2 and #3 will make everyone forget that first one.

And what does this have to do with today’s Drink of the Week? Well, let’s just say that after what I’ve been through the last few weeks, it’s time to move on — from the bourbon drinks I’ve been promoting here week after week and lots of other things besides. Also, this week, I’ve personally paid for every single ingredient. For this week, at least, we’re freebie free.

Today’s drink features a base spirit so classic it had all but disappeared until a few years back, and it’s one I’ve been dying to try for ages: Old Tom gin. It’s London dry gin’s much sweeter cousin which apparently includes a bit of simple syrup in the mix. Original Old Tom gins were apparently mostly gins that had sugar added to them to cover up some nasty flavors. Today’s very nice version — which really isn’t bad on its own — is from Hayman’s Distillers.

I was also rather taken with the name of today’s cocktail. I’ve been feeling like it’s time for a long-delayed return trip to my one-time near-second home of Las Vegas. If things go badly at the 21 and craps tables for me, and well they might, this drink could certainly help remove some of the sting.

The Casino

2 ounces Old Tom gin
1/4 ounce maraschino liqueur
1/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
2 dashes orange bitters
1 lemon twist (garnisth)

Combine the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker or mixing glass with lots of ice and stir vigorously. (You can shake if you like, and you know I usually like to shake, but here I really don’t find it necessary.) Pour into a chilled cocktail/martini glass, add lemon twist, and drink a toast to the right kind of big changes and better luck.

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First of all, since I haven’t seen it in too many other places, I pretty much followed the lead of a 2008 blog post on Old Tom gin by England’s Jay Hepburn, but it should be noted there are other versions of this drink, in fact it can be tinkered with quite a bit.

For example, I know from my own experiments that this drink can also work very nicely with regular gin (I was using Beefeater), though I’m not sure if you still want to use the bitters. On the other hand, there is a super dry version of this drink that uses only dashes of the lemon juice and maraschino but throws in a cherry as the garnish. I’m sure that could work too and I might try it that way sometime.

On the other hand, the first time I made this, I forgot to use bitters with both the Old Tom and my London dry gin version and found it extremely drinkable. The casino seems to be a drink that can take an awful lot of abuse and not really be harmed. More proof that the house always wins.

  

Spotlight on Booze: Gin

It’s lost some commercial ground to vodka over the decades, but the revival of interest in classic cocktails has given gin a boost lately. In any case, this venerable liquor remains the standard clear alcohol among serious cocktail aficionados, who strongly prefer its more complex flavor and swear it’s the only true main ingredient in a martini.

Gin is distilled from grain, usually wheat or rye, and starts out as a fairly plain spirit probably not so different from vodka. After that, “distilled gins” are then distilled a second time with various flavorings. The most prominent being juniper berries. That’s only for starters, as gin manufacturers use a pretty vast assortment of herbs and other botanicals ranging from licorice root to grapefruit peels to the perfumey bergamot we associate with Earl Grey tea. Some ultra-cheap brands are “compound gins.” These gins are not redistilled, but simply have tiny infusions added — they’re basically gin-flavored alcohol.

Most modern gins are “dry” and manufactured in England; these gins legally may not contain any added sugar and that aids in the liquor’s superb mixability. As far as we can tell, however, there isn’t much predictable difference between “London dry, “extra dry,” and other similar designations. “Plymouth” gins technically only have to come from the coastal town, but they tend to have a somewhat more complex, pungent, and slightly sweeter flavor profile. Largely produced in Holland and Belgium, genever is a less strong gin variant popular in central Europe. With plenty of added sugar, you can still find very sweet “old Tom” gin if you look hard. Speaking of sweet, you’ve likely had a slurp or two or of “sloe gin,” actually a liqueur made with gin or cheaper neutral spirits mixed with sloe berries. Most brands of gin are between 84 and 92 proof (42-46 percent alcohol), but a number of less upscale mass market brands are available at 80 proof or even less.

Like all types of booze, gin is available in a number of price levels, but there’s not really any such thing as a super premium gin. While you can easily spend $150.00 or much more on a bottle of small batch bourbon or single malt Scotch, if you find a bottle of regular size bottle of gin selling for more than $50.00, you’re probably paying mostly for ultra-fancy packaging. Some of the best and/or most popular premium gins include Tanqueray Ten, Plymouth (a brand as well as style of gin), and Bombay Sapphire. Just as good or better, in our opinion, are the mid-priced premiums, available in some states at discounters like Costco, Bev-Mo and Trader Joe’s. These include Tanqueray, Bombay Dry Gin (less heavy on the perfumey juniper berries than Sapphire), and Hendricks, an increasingly popular Scottish gin we like quite a bit. A bit cheaper, still quite good, and very rich in “Mad Men”-style classic street cred, is Beefeater.

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